The End of an Era

Let’s first start this briefly off with Jim Joyce and how he must feel like the biggest piece of shit on the face of the planet for having blown that last out of Armando Galarraga’s perfecto last night. Let’s just hope that MLB makes the right move here and awards him the perfect game even though it really doesn’t matter because the best part of the whole experience is the celebration and how Armando for the one and only time in his life would have felt like he actually was going to succeed in the majors, but kiss that goodbye cause you can bet your ass that within a few years the only Galarraga that baseball fans will even know is this guy the “Big Cat”...

Now for today’s real topic and that is Ken Griffey Jr. announcing his retirement from baseball. To be quite honest this makes me feel old as shit. I mean I have seen players that I grew up watching retire but never has a player that I felt I watched his entire career from beginning to end hang ‘em up in any sport. Junior was the absolute man, between the ages of 5 and 13 I wanted to be him more than anyone else in the world (then I hit puberty and I wanted to be like any guy who was hooking up with a chick). Guy just rocked the backwards hat, had the sweetest stroke in the history of baseball, starred in all time classic movies like Little Big League and had guest appearances on shows like The Fresh Prince of Bel Air.

Anyway having played his whole career through the Steroid Era Griffey managed to keep his name from being tarnished like all the other “supposed greats” that cheated their way to the numbers they put up. He is 5th all time in homers at 630, has won 11 gold gloves, was selected to 13 All Star games, won 3 home run derby’s, 11 silver slugger awards, was the 1997 MLB MVP and was selected to the Major League Baseball All Century Team. Now you can bet your entire savings that Junior will be a first ballot lock for the Hall of Fame.

But even though Junior put up the great numbers real fans of his will never forget certain moments of his career such as making one of the greatest catches ever running into the wall breaking his wrist, scoring on Edgar Martinez’ double against the Yankees in Game 5 of the 1995 ALDS in extra innings, putting on an absolute show at Camden Yards when he was putting balls off the buildings outside of the stadium during the home run derby and when him and his father hit back to back homers in a game during the 1990 season (a feat that will never happen again).

There really is nothing else that can define “The Kid” other than that he was completely fuckin awesome. He was hands down my child hood idol and even though he hasn’t been the same player for the past five years he still played the game the same way he did back when he was a 19 year old rookie. Junior retiring is like Robert DeNiro not starring in mafia movies anymore, shit is just not gonna be the same for a while.

So excuse me while I go squeeze into my #24 jersey, break out my baseball cards, my gold plated Ken Griffey Jr. coin, my All Star plaque, my street sign, my bobble head and stickers and create the greatest shrine ever in the history of shrines in the back of my closet for the legend Ken Griffey Jr.